Egypt ex­tends emer­gency for sec­ond time

CAIRO: Egypt’s Pres­i­dent Ab­del Fat­tah al Sisi extended for the sec­ond time a state of emer­gency first de­clared fol­low­ing deadly church bomb­ings in April, in a de­cree is­sued in the of­fi­cial gazette on Thurs­day. The re­newed three-month state of emer­gency will start on Fri­day, ac­cord­ing to the de­cree. “The armed forces and the po­lice will take the nec­es­sary mea­sures to con­front the dan­gers of ter­ror­ism,” it said.

Par­lia­ment ap­proved the ini­tial state of emer­gency in April after the two church bomb­ings claimed by the IS group that killed at least 45 peo­ple.

The state of emer­gency was then re­newed on July 10.

The fighter group said it was be­hind the bomb­ings in the cities of Tanta and Alexan­dria, and it threat­ened fur­ther at­tacks against Egypt’s Cop­tic Chris­tian mi­nor­ity. Fight­ers also claimed a Cairo church bomb­ing in De­cem­ber that killed 29 peo­ple.